Postwar Reconstruction And Reform Of Salt Administration In Zhejiang Province(1945-1949)

As the indispensable commodity of people’s daily life, salt plays an important role in social stability and economic development. During the period of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Japanese forcibly occupied many salt fields in China, the structural reform of salt administration implemented by national government was cracked,with the markedly dropped of gabelle and table salt production, the social economy has witnessed many severe tests.After the war, as the important salt area, Zhejiang started to recover as well as rebuild the salt policy step by step. City and county of Salt Administration agencies began to recover, puppet salt deposit is sequentially receives, Salt Management system gradually on the right track. In order to improve the salt tax, Zhejiang Salt Affairs Bureau of China had closed many salt administrations, and cut saltworks which was unproductive and shoddy, and reform the tax policy, re-grouped and placed the salt police. Besides, the "salt monopoly" in time of war has been transited so that everyone could transport, product as well as sale salt. The postwar rebuild of Zhejiang salt administration ensured the normal supply of salt, and played a positive role in society stability. The reform of transportation and sales system, abolished the maladministration of monopoly, it was of great significance to the modernization reform of China salt policy system.Because of the situation in time, the postwar rebuild of Zhejiang salt administration didn’t get the expected results. Although the gabelle was increased, it was still far less than the speed of national deficit surge and depreciation of paper currency. Whether it was Zhejiang or whole country, salt tax proportion of total tax revenue was decreased. Furthermore, it brings some series of problems in implementing "salt administration simplification", such as the placement of people who laid off, the inundation of private salt because of inadequate police force, the inequality between frequently increasing tax and too lower salt price, finally caused the failure in rebuilding of saltworks while the inundation of private salt. In addition, the salt producer riot caused by the low salt price had been a phenomenon, and the conflict between tradesmen and government were becoming increasingly acute. Though Zhejiang Salt Affairs Bureau of China put relevant policy to ease the contradiction, it was still difficult to solve. The recovering and rebuilding of postwar salt administration in Zhejiang, reflects the reform of national salt administration system to a certain extend.